2nd Woman Says She Was Fired After Circle K Robbed

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Samantha and Morgan Gray, two beautiful, healthy girls have no idea what their mother has been through at work.

“There’s times when I have nightmares,” said Sheila Gray. “I worry I’d be dead and I wouldn’t have them to raise.”

Gray was robbed at the North side Circle K last November.

Two men put a gun in her face, took a few hundred dollars from the cash register and took off.

A few days later, still traumatized from the incident, she was fired.

“She said because you got robbed at gunpoint and you had $200 in your register, we have to terminate you,” Gray said. “After, she asked me if I wanted counseling.”

If it sounds familiar, just Monday we told you about Kimberly Strawn, a victim of an armed robber at a Sharpsburg Circle K last week.

She too was fired.

“It means the world to me,” Strawn said. “It’s my income. It’s my income to take care of my responsibility to raise my son or to pay my bills.”

According to Circle K, both women were fired for violating the store’s “cash drop policy.” In other words, they didn’t take the excess cash from the register and put it in the store safe when they were supposed to.

Circle K calls it “a zero tolerance policy in place to protect employees and customers.”

Both women say they followed policy that the technology failed. Circle K says “our systems do appear to work if implemented as designed.”

Gray still has nightmares from the incident.

“The individual coming at me with the gun, playing over and over again in my head,” she said.

Strawn still can’t believe she was fired.

“I was dedicated to my job,” she said. “I liked my job and it hurts.”

After seeing Monday’s story, someone reached out to Strawn and offered her a job, paying more than $1.50 per hour more than she made at Circle K.

Gray is hopeful she will be able to find a new job as well — she’s been unemployed since her store’s robbery.